Networking Nightmare

Hardware and networking have never been my specialty, I've always just known enough to create a simple home wireless/wired network and that's about it. However, this past week I had to deal with two major networking changes that caused me far too much trouble. For those of you just tuning in, this is another filler article and if I have to write another one of these I may well abandon this blog as it appears I am having issues finding time to post to it.

The first issue was installing a SIP adapater, and for this I had a D-Link DVG-14902S unlocked and purchased from SIPPhones because I wanted to use it with my Gizmo account. Since I bought it from the same company that runs the Gizmo Project, I assumed it would be more or less configured and ready to go. No such luck. I spent three days reading knowledgebase tickets and playing around with options until I gave up, but I left everything plugged in and after my SIP adapter finished initializing (it takes a long time) my phone gave a ring, so I dialed my cell phone... and suddenly it worked (it had been getting busy signals when trying to dial out). I did have a 1-way audio issue at first but that was simply a matter of taking steps from another knowledgebase ticket to disable voice activity detection. I think the settings that finally ended up fixing everything were disabling all options under Plug 'N Dial (I was only disabling the actual plug n' dial option), and also using my SIP number as opposed to my user name as the login. At least I'm pretty sure those are the things that ended up finally getting it to work (forwarding the ports on my router may have helped as well, but it's desinged to be able to work behind a router).

The other issue I had was reconfiguring my router to work with my Nintendo DS since I had recently aquired Animal Crossing and wished to play it online with other people (which I haven't done since they don't allow strangers to access and I haven't bothered with the online forums, plus nobody else I know owns the game... but I still wanted my DS and router to play nicely, if for no other reason than because my Wii and router will eventually probably have the same problem). So I went through the process of switching my WAP security to WEP-128 (and thus making everything less secure), but I added MAC filtering (I know these can be cloned, but being in Iowa and being surrounded by people who probably wouldn't know how to do this, plus making all of my IP addresses other than my MacBook, SIP adapter, and at the time my DS static). So I thought everything was good after that, I tried having my DS connect... no luck... So I changed to WEP-64 thinking that maybe the DS had REALLY bad security so I'd have to use the lower encryption... still no luck connecting... I then looked some stuff online and found out that I had to set the TX rate and many complaints that people had to set the transfer rate to 2 Mbps (I did this and set the router to B/G as opposed to just G) and... no luck... However, I did notice that the problem was that there was no IP address from the DHCP server. Looking on my router though, there was an IP assigned to the DS... So I set the DS to a static IP and changed the TX rate back to auto, changed the encryption back to WEP-128 (I had also tried an open network with no luck)... and it finally connected--I just had to set a static IP. That, again, happened at the point where I was about to give up because I didn't care THAT much if I was able to play Mario Kart and Animal Crossing online.

However, it ended up working out... But I will say that it will be awhile before I decide to add another piece of network equipment (other than the Wii) again since I really don't like having to deal with these issues, and with the XBox, DS, MacBook, desktop, and phone all vying for my connection I also think that until I upgrade my connection to 1.5 mbps, I should keep things as they are.